Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (MSIP) and US maritime, energy and logistics company Crowley have formed a joint venture to advance offshore wind energy solutions in the USA.
The joint venture will combine Crowley’s end-to-end maritime and logistics capabilities through its Crowley Wind Services company and the financial expertise of MSIP; investment funds managed by MSIP, a private infrastructure fund platform within Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM), will hold a majority stake in Crowley Wind Services, while Crowley will operate the business.
The partnership will focus on repurposing and operating existing US port facilities and leasing them under long-term contracts to offshore wind developers. The terminals will support manufacturing, assembly and storage of wind farm components as well as provide developers with maritime services such as Jones Act-compliant feedering vessels to transport components from ports to offshore wind installations.
“In our view, the US offshore wind industry is in its early stages with ambitious goals to develop 30 GW of capacity from offshore wind by 2030 and unlock a pathway to 110 GW by 2050,” said Daniel Sailors, managing director at MSIP. “We believe port infrastructure is essential to the build-out and long-term maintenance of offshore wind projects and we are excited to partner with Crowley to provide the foundational infrastructure that will enable the development of this important industry.”
Crowley’s port development operations include the public-private partnership with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Clean Energy Center and the City of Salem, Massachusetts, to construct the Salem Wind Services Terminal. It is also pursuing the development of a US West Coast terminal in Eureka, California, and has a right-of-first refusal agreement to lease and potentially develop a wind services terminal at Port Fourchon, Louisiana.
